FIELD HOCKEY: Owen J. Roberts ousted by Wissahickon

By Dennis Weller, Special to The Mercury

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

LOWER GWYNEDD — Owen J. Roberts created enough open-field scoring opportunities to do some damage in Tuesday afternoon’s District 1-AAA second round field hockey contest at Wissahickon. But the young Wildcats were able to convert only one of them into a goal … and that was too late and not enough in a season-ending 2-1 loss.

Emma Christman scored with 4:10 to go in the match for OJR (9-10-1) to cut the Trojan lead in half and the 19th-seeded Wildcats created a pair of penalty corner opportunities in the final two minutes to no avail. Third-seeded Wissahickon (16-3) - which got a goal from Stacie Rocco with five seconds remaining in the first half and another from Emily Gallager with 13 minutes left - advances to a Friday quarterfinal match against West Chester Henderson, a 3-0 winner over Council Rock North.

“I think we really played with all our heart,” said junior forward Christman, who scored her team-high 13th goal of the season. “Even though we lost, I couldn’t be any prouder of the people on my team.”

Wissahickon had the better of the play early, but Wildcat junior backfielder Shannon Harris broke up several threats near or in the circle. Then the Wildcats had a couple of near misses later in the half. One came on a nice lead pass from Maddie Stone to Christman, who broke ahead of the last defender for a shot, but Trojan keeper Emoni Fisher came out to make the save. Then Christman intercepted a pass and took it into the circle, but her shot hit off the outside of the right post.

The Trojans took the lead in the final seconds of the half when Jackie Hibbs – who set a team season record for assists last week – got the ball past charging OJR keeper Lizzy Tamburro to Rocco for a score.

Rocco earned an assist on the other goal as Tamburro made a save and a follow-up try was stopped by an OJR defender, but Gallagher finally knocked it in for a 2-0 advantage with 12:56 to go.

But the Wildcats would not go down quietly as Lauren Schweppe whistled one just to the left of the cage with 10 minutes remaining and Molly Minahan led a fastbreak into the circle with Christman to her right, but the ball was knocked away.

The Wildcats finally got on the board when Minahan retrieved a ball that went off the goalie’s pads and passed back to Christman for a shot from right out in front for the goal. OJR forced a corner with two minutes left, but a try by Stone was blocked and the Wildcats could not get a shot off on another corner 30 seconds later. The game ended as the Wildcats once again closed in with 10 seconds left, but couldn’t get the ball into the circle.

“We’ve been working on finishing and it looked good in practice,” said Christman. “I think we have to work on more pressure.”

“It’s us not being composed enough to finish,” said Wildcat coach Clarence Jennelle.

While OJR was able to create some scoring chances from the outside, they just weren’t able to sustain any attacks in the middle due to the tough Trojan defense.

“We knew it was going to be a tough center with Jackie (Hibbs) in the middle,” said Christman. “Once we realized we had to keep it out of the center, we got it to the outside.”

“Jackie’s good,” Jennelle added. “She can dribble. Their backs held us to the outside. They didn’t give us a chance to get in.”

Another factor that hurt the Wildcats was an injury in the second half to Schweppe, who finished second on the team in points on the season.

“When Schweppe went down, it took us 10 minutes to regroup,” said Jennelle.

But despite the comparatively early end to the season after OJR won its first-ever district title last year, the Wildcats are already looking forward to next year.

“We’re definitely going to have a strong team next year,” said Christman. “We’re going to miss all the seniors who are leaving us, but we’re definitely looking forward to the potential next year.”

“We’re young, but a lot of guys are going to do a lot of off-season stuff,” Jennelle added. “The jayvee team didn’t lose a game this year. They’re strong and fast. We’re going to give the PAC-10, districts, and states a run for the money.”